


Tonight

by chaosmanor



Category: Black Books (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anonymous Sex, Consensual Kink, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Fucked Up, Past Relationship(s), Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 15:40:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16977369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: A long time ago, Fran and Bernard 'dated', which mostly involved Bernard shouting at Fran about his writing and Fran having sex with other people.It was all a bit shit, really.





	Tonight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edna_blackadder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edna_blackadder/gifts).



“Gin,” Fran said, checking her backpack. “Gin for me, condoms, fags. Red wine for Bernard. Riding crop, just because.”

_Bernard_. Half a thought wandered past, wearing grubby black jeans and needing a shower.

“Lap top, Bernard’s letter.”

Fran tottered to the bus stop in her best heels, past the minicab depot, cigarette stuck to her lipstick. Was tonight a catcall night? Yes? No? No. Shelley, Fran’s roommate, was drying her duvet at the launderette, after a Friday night binge, and shouted out the door: “Where’s your fucking rent, you slag?!” Fran power-slunk out of sight. 

The bus rattled up to the stop and Fran stumbled on, pretending to tag on with her student union card because no way was she wasting money on bus fare. Bernard’s bedsit was only four stops, and if a ticket inspector got on, she’d show him her tits. Fran had great tits, and it was her responsibility to use them to avoid public transport fare evasion fines before they started to sag.

That night was a titless night, though and Fran got off the bus at the car wash and headed for Bernard’s flat.

Bernard didn’t respond at the first, third or seventh ring on the bell, so Fran crouched down and shouted through the letter slot of the front door. “Bernard, you wanker, let me in!”

“Oi,” a voice said behind her. “Git out of the way.”

Gerry, who lived on the top floor.

“Let us in, Gerry,” Fran said. “Bernard must be, um, asleep.”

“Pissed, you mean,” Gerry said, pushing past Fran with a bundle of paper-wrapped fragrant and steaming chips in his hands.

Fran followed Gerry in to the stairwell anyway.

Bernard’s flat door was ajar, so Fran shoved on it hard with her shoulder to widen the gap enough to fit through.

“Bernard?” Fran called out. “Drinkies?”

The flat was a bedsit, with a ‘kitchen’ in an alcove. ‘Kitchen’, because no one who understood the germ theory of disease transmission would ever cook there. The bathroom was shared with the other flat on the first floor, off the landing, and was usable thanks to the ongoing efforts of Mrs Bladgley who lived in the bedsit opposite and threw bleach at the toilet and bath every day.

The floor beside the couch moved, layers of newspapers, books and pizza boxes shifting tectonicly, and Bernard pulled himself out of the mess. 

“Drinks?” he slurred. “Is it morning already?”

“Yes!” Fran said brightly, pulling a bottle of red plonk from her handbag and waving it at Bernard. “It’s Saturday evening. It’s date night.”

“What?!” Bernard gasped, reaching for the bottle repeatedly and missing it. “Date night?”

“Remember?” Fran said, holding the wine just out of his reach. 

“Argh,” Bernard complained. “No, gimme the wine.”

Fran smiled at him, showing all of her teeth, especially the canines.

“Urgh,” Bernard said. “You’re my girlfriend, that’s right. Saturday night, we do… things. Like, couple things.”

Fran handed over the bottle of plonk to Bernard, who pulled the cork out with his teeth, spat it out, and began to gulp the contents while backing into the chair at his desk.

“Easy,” Fran said, lowering herself down carefully on to the couch, in case there was something alive there. “I only brought the one bottle.”

Bernard’s eyes went wild, and he stopped sculling. “One bottle of wine? What kind of girlfriend are you?”

“The kind that drinks gin,” Fran said, retrieving the gin from her bag. “I have a letter for you. From a publisher.”

A wild toss of the head, and Bernard said, “I don’t care about publishers. My writing is pure and unsullied by commercialism.”

Fran crinkled the envelope a little with one hand, and unscrewed the top from her gin bottle with her other.

“Okay, okay,” Bernard said. “For you. I’m doing this for you, because it matters to you.”

Fran handed over the envelope and watched cautiously around the gin bottle. This could go two ways, potentially, but all past experiences indicated ‘badly’.

Bernard opened the envelope, read the letter, and wailed with despair as he fell to the floor. 

Oh dear, another rejection. 

“I’m going to pee,” Fran said. “Back in fifteen?” That was long enough to get to the chippy and back as well. 

Bernard howled. Bernard sobbed. 

Fran took that as assent, and let herself and her gin bottle out of the flat, remembering to take the key from the nail. He’d be over the worst of it by the time she got back, and she’d have an empty bladder, have eaten a quid’s worth of chips with salt and vinegar, and be drunk by then. 

When Fran let herself back in unsteadily, Bernard was hunched over his writing desk, scribbling furiously. 

“Replying to the rejection letter?” Fran asked, hanging Bernard’s key back up, and settling in among the fag ends and empty crisp packets on the couch.

“Yes,” Bernard said. “Fucking wanker publishers. Moron editors. Where did you go?”

“To pee,” Fran said, burping chips and gin. “Remember, I told you?”

Bernard grunted but didn’t look up from his scribbling. “Type this up and send it off.”

Fran rummaged through her bag and pulled out the folder that held that week’s typed up manuscript. “Don’t you want to check my typing for mistakes?”

“Just get it right first time. These dick dribbles, Pretentious Twatwaddle and Sons, need this reply promptly.”

Fran, who was nowhere near as mad as Bernard, had no intention of sending any of Bernard’s rejection letter replies to anyone. She did her best not to read them herself. Bernard might work this out one day, or he might not. Fran found she didn’t care, just like Pretentious Twatwaddle and Sons. 

Bernard thrust a page of outraged scribble at Fran, and she handed him a stack of spelling-and-grammar-checked, structurally-edited and appropriately-formatted corrections, from the previous weekend. 

“The next story?” Fran asked.

“Do I have to do everything!” Bernard shouted at her. “Find it yourself.”

Bernard’s handwritten manuscript pages were stuck to the carpet, beside the one bar electric heater and the coin box for the electricity meter. Some of the pages had been rolled up and jammed into the meter box, and Fran couldn’t piece together Bernard’s drunken reasoning that led him to believe he could directly exchange his incoherent ranting for electricity.

Fran smoothed out the pages, then disinfected her hands with a splash of gin before pulling her laptop out of her bag. This was date night, the highlight of her romantic relationship with Bernard, when Fran would edit and type his weekly output, and Bernard would approve her previous work, ready for Fran to send out with cover letters.

“Work!” Bernard shouted. “My glorious words must be shared with the world!”

Fran worked and drank, hunched over on Bernard’s couch, her fingers tapping away, while Bernard scribbled and drank. 

The gin was running low, and Fran was watching both the time for the last bus and the battery display on her laptop, for the sweet spot for leaving, when Bernard lurched to his feet and stumbled across to stand uncertainly in front of Fran. 

“Franny,” Bernard mumbled. “Franny, you’re good to me.”

Fran saved Bernard’s manuscript, a particularly dire allegorical story about zombies lost in a forest, and closed her laptop.

“Yes,” Fran agreed.

“Show you,” Bernard said.

Fran nodded.

And Bernard unzipped his jeans and pulled out his penis. 

That was not the expression of gratitude that Fran expected, but at least she had learned not to point and laugh at penises anymore.

“Okay,” Fran said. 

“If you’re my girlfriend,” Bernard continued, wobbling unsteadily on his feet, which made his penis wave uncertainly, “then we should, you know…”

“Sex?” Fran suggested, and Bernard’s penis nodded.

“Naked?” Fran asked, because the idea of Bernard naked seemed improbable, and downright unhygienic. 

Bernard’s penis seemed a little dejected at the idea too.

“Maybe only a bit naked,” Bernard said. “Just the necessary bits.”

“Okay,” Fran said. “We can do this.”

She lay back on the couch and smiled encouragingly at Bernard. “Climb aboard, sailor.”

Bernard clambered on top of her, their combined weight making the couch creak alarmingly. Bernard’s penis, loose from its usual confinement, was making a break for freedom up Fran’s skirt.

Fran reached for her bag with one hand, to find a condom, and squirmed her skirt up out of the way.

“Hang on,” she said. “Let’s get this bad boy safely wrapped up.”

Bernard’s face was all scrunched up, and he was making grunting noises.

“Condom,” Fran said, smacking Bernard on the nose with the condom retrieved from her bag.

“Gngh. Gngh. Gngh.”

“Sweet buggery bollocks, do you have any idea where you’re trying to put that thing?” Fran asked, as Bernard waggled his penis around randomly against her thighs.

“Gngh. Gngh. Gngh.”

“Apparently not.”

Bernard let out a loud satisfied groan, ejaculated on Fran’s legs, then slumped down on her, a dead weight. 

“Well,” Fran said. “That was a thing.”

Bernard snored, disgusting and sonorous, in Fran’s ear. 

Fran lifted her wrist and checked the time on her watch. “Look at that. 11.23pm. Have to go, catch the last bus. Bye Bernard.”

She heaved Bernard sideways, off her and the couch, and clambered over him. She was a mess, but nothing that gin wouldn’t fix. A big gulp for her, and a big splosh on a tissue from her handbag, to clean her legs up. Toss the tissue into the mess on the floor. Another gulp of gin for her.

Collect manuscript pages, handwritten notes and laptop, shove them all in to her bag. Find shoes. Straighten skirt. More gin. 

“See you next Saturday,” Fran said brightly to Bernard, who was sprawled unconscious on the floor beside the couch, his shrivelled penis hanging out of the open fly of his jeans. “Bye, Bernard’s penis.”

Quick check of the time? Fran let herself out of the flat and tottered down the stairs. 

Outside, her regular Saturday night minicab was just pulling up, right on time at 11.35pm.

She opened the minicab door and climbed in.

“Same place as usual, miss?” the driver asked.

“Same place,” Fran said. “Thanks.”

The minicab dropped her off, and Fran paid the driver and tipped him a quid.

“I’ll call when I need picking up,” Fran said. “Probably a couple of hours.”

The driver nodded, and Fran ignored his smirk. Honestly, some people made assumptions, and it pissed Fran off.

Another shitty block of flats, only this one was a tower block. Fran opted for the stairs, rather than the disgusting lift, and panted her way up six floors and along the walkway.

She rapped on the flat door, sharp and hard.

A young man answered, with a mass of fluffy hair and a wispy beard. He was wearing a bathrobe, and he smelled squeakily clean, of toothpaste and shampoo and conditioner. 

Fran pushed her way in past him.

His tiny flat was tidier than Bernard’s, and most of the clutter was stacks of textbooks, on accounting, business, and management.

“Who are you, mysterious lady who randomly appears in my flat?” the young man asked, still standing by the door.

“It’s not random,” Fran pointed out. “I turn up every Saturday night at 11.55pm. And you're not allowed to know my name. Close the door.”

Fran opened the door to the bedroom and tossed her bag on the bed. “I need to tidy up first.”

In the bathroom, she hoiked her skirt all the way up to her waist and borrowed the man’s face washer to give her thighs a thorough scrub down, then peed.

“Should I be doing anything?” the man asked worriedly through the door.

“Get the bed ready,” Fran called out, as she washed her hands. 

The blankets were turned down, and clean sheets waited for Fran, when she opened the bathroom door. 

“Undress me, obedient stranger,” Fran said. 

The man carefully unbuckled and unzipped Fran’s clothes, lifting them off her or sliding them down, then draping them over a chair. Fran wondered about asking him to hang them up next time.

“My bag,” Fran said, and the man brought it to her. She took out condoms and the riding crop, and he gasped. 

“Oh yes,” Fran said. “Tonight, I’m going to whip you while you go down on me. Then you are going to fuck me as much as you can.”

“Please!” the man said.

Fran propped herself up on the pillows and spread her legs. “Go to it.” The handle of the riding crop was under her hand, ready for her to use. She planned on coming several times.

 

At four in the morning, back in her own bed, Fran opened up her own manuscript on her laptop. 

“Chapter Eleven,” she typed. “Tonight, I whipped my man while he went down on me.”

* * *

Many years later, in a bookstore…

 

“Have you priced those books yet?!” Bernard shouted, from the desk. 

Manny, who had built himself a barricade out of the boxes of new stock, popped his head up over the boxes, and said, “Not yet. There’s a lot of books.”

“Work faster!” Bernard shouted. “No dillydallying, you worthless dillydallier!”

Manny ducked back down out of sight and picked up the pricing gun. 

“One pound. Five pounds. Two pounds,” he muttered to himself, lifting each book and jabbing the sticky label on it.

The next book out was from a decade or so ago. Manny could remember the fuss when it had been published. _Tonight_ , it was called, written by ‘a woman of pleasure’. The book fell open, presumably at a chapter favoured by the last owner. 

_Tonight, I spanked my man_ , the chapter started.

“Oh no you don’t,” Bernard said, reaching over the book box barricade and wrenching the book out of Manny’s hands. “That’s filth, disgusting filth, and you are too young for that nonsense.”

“But!” Manny said. “I’ve had girlfriends! I’ve had sex!”

“Sure,” Bernard said. “Namby pamby sex, not that kind of dirty sex. I won’t have this rubbish in the building.”

Manny huffed indignantly. “It’s not fair.”

“Go back to work! I have important writing things to do! I have to shout at publishers, and write magnificent words!”

Manny grumbled, and waited for Bernard’s chair to creak under Bernard’s weight. The next book out of the box was another copy of _Tonight_. 

 

Manny curled up in bed with the blankets over his head and a torch under the covers, and the contraband book. Bernard wasn’t the boss of Manny. No one was the boss of Manny. Manny hadn’t had a boss, not for a very long time. 

END

Here's a short YouTube vid of Bernard responding to a publisher's rejection letter. 


End file.
